Somewhere Out There
by AnimeDawn
Summary: Ever wonder what Chell does after escaping Aperture? Will she ever see Wheatley again? Here's my take on things!
1. Wishing

_Humans have always thought of space as a vast, dark sea of endless stars and countless galaxies with just as many possibilities. It was a beacon of light for those who felt alone in the world since all you had to do was look up into the night sky at the thousands of twinkling dots and realize that someone, somewhere, was gazing at the exact same sky as you were. It was comforting to know that there were some other people sharing the same universe, the same existence as you. No matter what, you were never truly alone._

_However… being in space is different than looking up at it and marvelling at it's exalted beauty. Even more so when you are trapped in space with no way to get back. This is the current situation that Wheatley is in, and I'm not going to sugar coat it. There's no point in doing that. I am solely to blame. I made the choice, and my actions have forever exiled him to the emptiness and silence of space._

_Part of me wanted to do it, I'll admit that, but only because the sting of betrayal was too much for my heart to handle. That sphere was the only friend that I had ever made inside the Aperture Science building. Hell, he was the only friend I had ever made period, and for him to just… suddenly start blaming me for all of these things that I never did, and try to kill me… I had no choice. It was either suck him into space so that I could survive, or let him kill me. I had tried to save him, really, I did. God, I wish there had been a better way to fix this whole mess…_

_But despite the fact that he turned on me, I still owe him my life. If he hadn't of woken me up from my slumber in cryo-storage, I would be trapped down there right now instead of sitting here in this huge field of wheat. He told me when we first met that he had woken me up because he was concerned about my state of health. It still makes me smile when I remember that. He was concerned about me. Before we made plans to escape together, Wheatley had administered a few tests to see just how good or bad my mental health was. He asked me to say "apple". I couldn't speak because I had been born a mute, so I jumped instead. I think of moments like those the most. The bad things that happened sort of come and go, but those precious times between Wheatley and I never fade away. I doubt that they ever will._

_Wheatley… He was always so optimistic, and even though he was quite unsure of himself he did a lot of things on his own. Thinking back on our travels in Aperture, I'm pretty sure that he was trying his best to impress me. He was tired of being looked down upon, and wanted to prove that he was useful, smart and capable. All he needed was for someone to give him a chance, to accept him for who he was. I did both of those things, and he seemed grateful for all of the positive attention._

_Either way, I had always thought he was a charming, intelligent sphere. I still think that, even now. GLaDOS may call him a moron and dismiss him as nothing more than that, but the truth is that there's more to him than meets the eye. He had thought of some pretty important ideas to ensure my safety if things should go wrong with the escape plan (which they sort of did). Thanks to him, I was able to survive my confrontation with her._

_Hmm… now that's got me thinking… Maybe that's why he was trying to kill me. That chassis of hers is the main control center for the entire Aperture facility. With that kind of power, he could do anything he wanted to. So… it's possible that he became corrupted by the infinite power at his metaphorical fingertips. And when GLaDOS informed me that Wheatley was an Intelligence Dampening Sphere that was designed to hamper her intelligence, he became furious. Could be that he was upset because the one person who saw him as intelligent and helpful now knew the horrible truth… I never thought of that before! Oh, Wheatley… I've been misunderstanding your vendetta against me this entire time! I'm sorry… If I had been able to speak, maybe I could have made things better… I could have told him everything. How much he meant to me, how much he still means to me…_

_How much I love him…_

Chell's pencil hovered over the paper as she thought hard about what she had just written. Her diary entry today was just one of many that she wrote about Wheatley; but, unlike the other wistful entries, after writing this she had discovered a few things that had never occurred to her before.

For one thing, she now understood why Wheatley had tried to kill her. He had been mortified that she found out about his main function, and angry with GLaDOS for telling her - not to mention the power flowing through him at that time was like a corruptive drug. He likely felt that all of the effort that had been put into making a good impression was ruined, and he figured that he was powerful enough to erase what had been done. She felt bad for the poor sphere - all he wanted was to be acknowledged as an equal. It didn't fix what he had done, but she had sympathy for him all the same.

Then, after flipping through the many previous pages of her diary and re-reading some of their contents, Chell had finally come to terms with this feeling she was struggling with ever since she left the Enrichment Center.

Whenever she thought about Wheatley, her heart did belly flops inside her chest. Tears welled up in her eyes when she thought about how far away he must be by now. Sometimes she swore that she could hear his voice on the wind, almost like he was sitting right beside her. This feeling deep inside her heart was persistent, much like Chell herself was, and having never felt anything like this before she became frustrated when it amplified a hundredfold after every single diary entry she wrote. She wanted to know what it meant before but there was no one left to ask except GLaDOS and, unless it was absolutely necessary, she was _not _going back in there. So it was left up to her to figure out for herself what the purpose of this feeling was. It had taken hours of thinking and even more hours of heart-wrenching soul searching for her to get to this point, and now that she knew the answer it felt like a million tonnes had been lifted from her shoulders.

She was in love with him. He was somewhere out there, and she loved only him.


	2. Shooting Star

Being free had its pros and its cons. On one hand, Chell could do whatever she wanted - live, eat, sleep whenever or wherever she desired. She could build herself a house, or maybe make herself a weapon to defend herself just in case some wild creatures came around that were hostile. But there were pretty slim chances of that happening, she thought. Being literally surrounded by fields of wheat didn't exactly provide the best cover for a hunter to sneak up on its prey. One little rustle in the grass and she could be up the nearest tree in a few seconds flat… except that the nearest tree was practically the only tree around. Chell frowned and scratched her head. Yeah, it was probably good that she was the only living thing around right now.

But on the other hand, the cons were so negative it almost defeated the purpose of her escape. She remembered a time when there was life on the surface. Birds used to chirp away in the branches of trees, flowers used to bloom in the spring, and people used to walk down the sidewalk and greet each other as they passed. Massive buildings used to reach to the sky and cars used to drive down the streets. There used to be mothers, fathers, doctors, teachers… She vaguely remembered what they all looked like, but it had been so long since she had seen anything like that. It felt like she had been brainwashed for many years, staring down the tunnel and focusing on the end without even glancing to the side to see if anything of interest was there. All of those tedious years inside Aperture, all of the testing… and meanwhile, her life was passing by and she was missing things. She was blissfully unaware that the world had undergone extreme changes. She had no idea that _this _was all there was left. There had to be more than this. There just had to be!

However Chell had been out here for a long time already, and she knew that this really was it. She had seen nothing but wheat when she had walked in all directions for at least five miles, and afterwards she felt nothing but dismay. The world above was empty, and all that remained of the modern world she used to know was that shack.

A small shack that looked innocent enough from the outside - rusted tin walls topped with a rusty roof - but Chell knew that was the entrance to Aperture for that was the way she had exited, courtesy of GLaDOS. She realized now just how much of a punishment this was meant to be. Testing had become her life, nothing else existed for her except testing. She had grown so accustomed to trying to escape through GLaDOS' testing that now that she was free, there was nothing left for her to accomplish. Her life was basically at a dead end. This situation was made even worse now that Wheatley was gone… Ultimately she had no one to keep her company except herself.

Her existence was going to be a lonely one, she thought as she plopped herself down at the base of the old tree and stared aimlessly at the sky. Chell was never one to let herself succumb to things like depression but if there was ever a time to start doing it, now seemed perfect. The sun was boiling hot, and it seemed like it hadn't rained in a long time. The tree she was sitting under was suffering much because of this. Its branches were tiny and shrivelled, and any leaves that had life left in them were now falling off one by one into a reddish-orange pile around her. Chell silently sighed and leaned her back fully against the trunk. Slowly her eyes slid shut. That was going to be her one day… Slowly withering, dying from the sun's sweltering heat, unloved and uncared for…

"Catch me…!"

Chell's eyes shot open as soon as she heard it. She stood up and frantically scanned the fields for a bright blue optic, a glint of metal, anything. Her heart was catching in her throat, and if she could she would have screamed his name as loud as possible. She was certain that she had heard his voice, but it sounded like it was coming from everywhere. It has to be real, she kept silently telling herself, it just _has _to be!

A few tense minutes passed, but Chell still couldn't see anything. She ran out from the shade of the tree and began looking towards the sky. It was a crystalline blue, and there was not a cloud in sight. Desperately she tried to say something, to utter even a simple hello, but no words came. She kept trying over and over again until her throat hurt from the strain, and she was forced to stop. Still she maintained constant watch of the skies, and a few more minutes of silence passed. Was it her imagination…?

Disappointment was on the tip of her tongue, but she wouldn't give up, not yet. She was sure that she had heard him screaming for her to catch him. All of her imaginings before had never sounded so… so… realistic, so _close. _It just couldn't be fake, and if that was true then where the heck…?!

"Catch me, catch me, CATCH ME!"

Before Chell could even react, something came rocketing out of the sky and crashed full-speed into the ground a few feet away from her. Dirt and debris ended up being splayed everywhere, and she had to duck for cover behind the tree as quickly as she could to avoid getting hit by the stuff. She was very thankful that at least one tree had survived long enough to shield her. Once the dust had settled, Chell poked her head out to see if the coast was clear.

The wheat was tall, so she couldn't see the spot very clearly, but she could see smoke drifting up where something had landed. Assuming that everything was okay, she stepped out from the tree and leaned down to grab her diary lest it got forgotten. She was just about to run over and see if it really was who she thought it was, but she stopped once she heard it talking to itself.

"… Ow. Well, that could have gone better, couldn't it? Actually, no. Probably not. It could have gone a lot worse… Oh-kay… time to evaluate the damage. How bad is-OWOWOWOWOW!"

Chell jumped a bit at the sudden outburst, but her smile couldn't have been brighter. She recognized that cockney British accent straight away. Somehow Wheatley had managed to come back. He was here, right now! She resisted the urge to rush over and hug the living daylights out of him, and instead slowly approached him while he continued to ramble in his usual style.

"Ow… ow. Okay, never doing _that _again. Ever. So, let me see… where exactly are you now, Wheatley?"

Chell peeked over the tips of wheat and finally caught her first glimpse of Wheatley in a very, _very _long time. He still looked the same as when she last saw him, except that his metal casing was filled with dents. He had probably been hit by a few space rocks, maybe even a couple of meteors judging by the varying sizes of them. But it was still her good old Wheatley! He even sounded normal when he talked, not all foreboding and ominous and, well, evil like before. She was glad to see that he was back to his old self again, but she was worried that he might have taken extensive damage when he hit the ground. At least he was still talking…

Currently his optic was staring at the sky at a bit of an angle, just enough for him to see the tops of the wheat. She watched it dart about, taking in the surroundings with a hint of confusion.

"Hmm… lots of long, tall stuff. Yellowish color, where have I heard of…? Ah, yes! This must be what humans call 'grass'. Oh, how marvellous, I must have crashed into the Earth! Oh… wait, hold on. I can't move. Oh no! I'll be stuck here forever, until I… well, I can't technically die, I don't think… But what if I do!? Oh, this is bad. Calm down, Wheatley, just calm down. You'll think of something!"

It was right about then that Chell stood up straight and waved at her old friend. Wheatley noticed her immediately and turned his optic towards her. It looked a little funny because he was kind of upside down, and Chell giggled a bit at this.

"Oh… It's you! Hello again! I never thought I'd ever see you after… well…"

His voice trailed off as they were both reminded of the past events that led to their separation. An awkward silence followed for a minute in which Wheatley, despite having no facial features of any kind, managed to look quite sheepish. Chell gazed at him expectantly, keeping her features carefully neutral, and he shifted his optic away from her eyes shamefully. A slight breeze whistled by, and the silence intensified between them. Finally after what seemed like ages Wheatley looked back over at her, his optic glowing faintly in the sunlight.

"Okay… I've been thinking for a long while about what I would say if I ever got the chance to see you again. Honestly, I never thought I would see you again, but now that we're here…"

He hesitated a bit, and Chell smiled and nodded her approval for him to continue. This gesture seemed to embolden Wheatley, and he made a static-like noise equivalent to a person clearing their throat.

"Right then. So… about tossing you down the elevator shaft and trying to kill you… Ah, this is hard. Um, well… you see, I… I'm sorry. I truly am. Something happened to me when I got hooked up to that bloody massive… well, you know," he continued, his optic constantly searching Chell's face for any kind of reaction, "I really don't know what it was, it was like I _had _to test at any cost, you know? Well, I guess you wouldn't know unless you were hooked up to it too. But…"

Chell slowly came up beside Wheatley and he closed his optic tight, fearing that she was going to roundhouse kick him halfway across the field. But all she did was sit down beside him and start digging him out of the dirt. After a few minutes he opened his optic slowly and looked down at her as she dug him out.

"Phew, for a minute there I thought you were going to send me flying," he said with obvious relief. Then he quickly added, "Although there is really nothing wrong with that, I suppose I deserve it. If you feel the need to kick me around, please have at it. I'm already as dented as possible, so it doesn't really…"

Chell shook her head at him and leaned over, very gently pressing her lips to the shutter of his optic. She pulled back and giggled as Wheatley blinked a few times and began sputtering.

"I… Did you just…? I mean, me? Really? You did? That… was that what I thought it was?"

Chell giggled even more, her cheeks flushing a deep pink color. Wheatley's optic half-closed in a smile.

"You look so pretty with rosy cheeks like that. Has anyone ever told you that? How pretty you look, I mean," he said, his voice soft and deep.

Chell smiled and her face grew even more pink. Wheatley noticed this and chuckled.

"I suppose not, eh? Well, let me be the first and only one to say you look absolutely… beautiful. Oh, and I'm still not done with my apology! I could go on forever about how sorry I am, you know."

Chell finally managed to pull the sphere out of the ground and rolled him into her lap for a long, endearing hug. Wheatley just grinned and chuckled to himself.

"Heh… Well, I could get used to this. In fact, I'm used to it already. This is a 'hug' right? I like hugs. I'd hug ya back, if I had any arms… or wires. Or something long… You know what I mean."

Chell just smiled to herself. She finally had her sphere back. She was complete, and so was her life. She didn't need to go anywhere. She didn't even have to move from this spot. Wheatley was here, and wherever he was, she would definitely be right beside him all the way.


End file.
